ADASS Publications

1. A journal for the astronomical computing community?

2. The Future of ADASS Proceedings

Gray, Norman and Lewis, Jim

This Birds of a Feather session covers two closely related topics which will be presented in two parts.

Part 1: A journal for the astronomical computing community? (Norman Gray)

The ADASS conferences provide a regular focus for those engaged in astronomical computing. ADASS proceedings provide a very valuable record of each conference, but imperfectly record the activities of the ADASS community, for a number of reasons: (i) appearing after a year, they often present out-of-date snapshots of rapidly-developing projects; (ii) being unrefereed, there is no quality threshold, nor are authors pushed to justify and elaborate where needed to provide the best account of their material; (iii) being tied to the annual conference cycle, projects are reported upon when the opportunity arises, not when they have reached appropriate milestones; and (iv) having restricted page lengths, topics receive only brief coverage.

This matters for at least two reasons. Firstly, material from most ADASS conference papers will be published nowhere else, so valuable technical lessons risk being lost. Secondly, as more people pursue a career in astronomical computing, it becomes more important that they have a means of recording their attainment and a track record of refereed journal papers, with associated citation statistics, is what potential employers will most readily understand.

Open source publishing systems make the establishment of a community-driven astronomical computing journal possible, but is it necessary? Would mainstream astronomy journals publish more technical papers if they were submitted? Are there computing journals that would welcome these papers? What are the benefits of refereeing to this community and would it devote the time needed to referee? Does the lack of refereed publications hinder the career progress of its members?

This BoF will address these and related questions. Most time will be devoted to contributions from the floor, rather than prepared talks. A few contributions will be sought to initiate and shape debate, and those interested in making one are invited to contact the organisers.

Part 2: The Future of ADASS Proceedings (Jim Lewis)

One of the principal aims of any conference is to provide a snapshot of
progress on a topic at a given time. This is usually accomplished through
publication of proceedings which, although they are unrefereed, are meant
to be an accurate representation of what was actually discussed. The
traditional format for this is in the form of a book (published, in the
case of ADASS, by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific Conference
Series). Proceedings published in this way have always had to have page
limits for each contribution and restrictions to the type of graphics that
can be used and this is in order to conform to what the format of a book
can accomodate. The amount of time required for editors to gather together
all the contributions and ensure they comply with these restrictions can
be considerable and it's often the case that the proceedings for ADASS
take about a year to reach the public. Although these are perrenial
irritations for both authors and editors, this is a model that has served
astronomy well for many years.

The ADASS conference is now twenty years old and in that time there have
been tremendous changes in the way that information is disseminated. The
advent of the Internet, very inexpensive (or even free) software tools,
fast search engines (e.g. Google) and electronic readers (e.g. Kindle)
have revolutionised publishing and information exchange. People all over
the world are choosing to get their information electronically rather than
from printed books and journals and this is not just restricted to
astronomy.

With that in mind it is time that we took a long hard look at how we
publish the proceedings for ADASS. Last year the Program Organising
Committee set up a subcommittee to look into the question of whether we
need to change our publication procedure and if so then by how much. Some
of the options explored included:

the status quo, that is continue publishing a book with ASPCS

retain the book as our primary means of publication, but change
to publishers who may be a bit cheaper and faster

retain the book, but also try to negociate a deal with the
publishers to provide open access to electronic versions of the
proceedings

get rid of the book format altogether and attempt to find a publisher
who will host an electronic version of the proceedings

get rid of the book format altogether and host the publication of the
electronic proceedings ourselves.

All of these options have their strengths and weaknesses and in this part
of the BoF we'll give brief presentations on the arguments for and against
each. We are hoping a lively discussion from the audience will ensue and
that all possible options can be reviewed openly. An audience vote will be
taken on Wednesday during first morning plenary session which we hope will
reflect consensus within the ADASS community.